Copper to Launch Digital Securities Brokerage Service in Abu Dhabi

According to CoinDesk, cryptocurrency custody and trading firm Copper plans to start offering a brokerage service for digital securities in Abu Dhabi early next year. Copper Securities, the new entity providing execution and custody services, is working with the emirate's Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) to obtain the necessary approvals by early 2024. This move has been facilitated by Copper's recent acquisition of Securrency Capital, an Abu Dhabi-based division of the Securrency tokenization platform that was not included in the acquisition of Securrency Inc. by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) in October. Copper joins a growing number of crypto businesses looking to the United Arab Emirates, which offers greater regulatory clarity for digital assets than many other jurisdictions. Copper CEO Dmitry Tokarev referred to Abu Dhabi as 'the capital of capital,' pointing to the region's accumulation of institutional assets. 'Abu Dhabi is more institutional and more focused around asset management, and that's exactly what Copper is; we only have institutional clients,' Tokarev said in an interview. 'While there isn't a huge retail market here, you will find all the big institutions, hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds.' A steady convergence between traditional financial (TradFi) plumbing and blockchain technology is underway, as banks and asset managers push to tokenize traditional financial assets. Copper Securities will offer services such as automated processing of corporate actions, settlements, top-ups, and rebalances, with plans to introduce securities financing, lending, and payments applications over the coming year.